North Korea nuclear deal gets mixed reviews in Asia, U.S.

Written by Chang on Sunday, October 12th, 2008

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korea welcomed while a hawkish Japanese minister derided the U.S. decision to remove North Korea from a terrorism blacklist and salvage a faltering nuclear deal in the final months of the Bush administration.

The impoverished and destitute North has been longing to be delisted so it can better tap into international finance, see the lifting of many trade sanctions, and use global settlement banks to send money abroad instead of relying on cash-stuffed suitcases.

The decision was made after North Korea agreed to a series of verification measures of its nuclear facilities, State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said in Washington on Saturday.

South Korea’s chief nuclear Kim Sook envoy told a Sunday briefing in Seoul:

“This government welcomes these moves as an opportunity that would lead to normalization of the six-party talks and North Korea’s eventual abandonment of its nuclear programmes.”

Kim said he believes the North should be moving back to disablement this weekend. Most of the steps, which were started in November, have been completed and were aimed at taking at least a year to reverse.

Last month North Korea lashed out at not being removed by backing away from a disarmament-for-aid deal it made with China, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the United States, and took initial steps to rebuild its plutonium-producing nuclear plant that was being disabled under the pact’s terms.

Japan has a simmering feud with Pyongyang over the fate of its nationals kidnapped decades ago by North Korean agents and still held in the communist state. A conservative minister who has take a hawkish view on the emotive issue called the U.S. move “extremely regrettable.”

“I believe abductions amount to terrorist acts,” Japanese Finance Minister Shoichi Nakagawa said in Washington while attending the G7 meetings on the global financial crisis.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said Bush spoke to Japan’s Prime Minister Taro Aso on Saturday and reaffirmed support for Japan on the abduction of its citizens.

As part of the deal, North Korea would resume disablement of its nuclear facilities and allow in U.N. and U.S. inspectors who had been ordered out.

Some conservatives in Washington wanted a tough verification system that would grant inspectors wide access to any suspected nuclear-linked facility in the secretive state and felt the Bush administration gave away too much for a rare diplomatic success.

“PATHETIC”

Former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, calling the verification measures agreed on “pathetic.”

“I think it is a real shame. North Korea has won about a 95 percent victory here and achieved an enormous political objective in exchange for which the United States has got nothing,” Bolton told Reuters.

Under the deal, which still has to be formalized, experts would have access to all declared nuclear sites and “based on mutual consent” to sites not declared by the North, said State Department spokesman Sean McCormack.

In addition, the United Nations atomic watchdog body, the IAEA, would play an important role in verifying Pyongyang’s atomic activities and the United States could take out samples of nuclear materials to check.

While being taken off the list, McCormack made clear North Korea would still be subject to numerous sanctions as a result of its 2006 nuclear test and there was still a long way to go.

North Korea tested a nuclear device in 2006 using plutonium and it is suspected of pursuing a uranium enrichment programme, which would provide a second path to make fissile material for nuclear weapons.

The latest measures agreed on include both the plutonium programme and any uranium enrichment and proliferation activities, McCormack said.

If energy-starved North Korea backed away, it would remain on the terror list and also stand to lose out on about half a million tons of heavy fuel oil, or aid of equal value, that had been pledged to it for previous progress in made in disarmament.

(Additional reporting by Jack Kim in Seoul, and Sue Pleming, Deborah Charles and Jeremy Pelofsky in Washington; Editing by Jerry Norton)